Equifax Canada Co. and Equifax Inc.

Overview

This case alleges that Equifax breached the privacy rights of Canadians whose sensitive personal information was stolen by cyber-criminals in a hack in 2017. The case also alleges that Equifax breached its contractual and consumer obligations to those who were paying Equifax to protect their identity and credit.

The Equifax defendants are credit bureaus operating in Canada and many other countries. They have admitted to failing to patch a security vulnerability in their online systems although they had been specifically alerted to the threat by U.S. officials. The unpatched vulnerability opened the door to the hack between May and July 2017.

The Court will decide at a later date if the case will proceed as a class action.

The case seeks to represent persons in Canada whose information was hacked in the 2017 Equifax breaches or who had a paid Equifax subscription on or before September 7, 2017.

Updates

January 25, 2018: The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has granted carriage of this class action to Sotos LLP and its clients Bethany Agnew-Americano and Jane Doe. In a decision dated January 24, 2018, the Court decided that it was in the best interests of the class of people affected by the Equifax breach to have Sotos LLP as their counsel. The Court also ordered that the class action brought by Merchant Law Group LLP be stayed and that no other class actions on this subject matter be filed in Ontario without the Court’s permission. You can find a copy of the Court’s decision here.

December 5, 2017: Equifax previously announced that approximately 8,000 Canadian consumers were affected by the data breach. Equifax Canada recently announced that “In addition, it was determined that some of the consumers with affected credit cards announced in company’s initial statement are also Canadian. We now know that this group includes 11,670 impacted Canadian consumers and we are in the process of notifying them by mail and offering them free credit monitoring and identity protection.” The total number of affected Canadians, as described by Equifax, therefore now appears to total 19,000 persons. If you receive a letter from Equifax and you are a Canadian resident, please register on our website here and follow our Facebook page here.

November 7, 2017: The Ontario Superior Court is scheduled to hear a motion on December 19, 2017, to decide if it should be Sotos LLP or Merchant Law Group that prosecutes this action in Ontario.

October 17, 2017: The first case conference about the class action was held before the Court.